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fundamentals Every handplane needs a tune-up BY T OMMY M AC DONALD frustrated pretty quickly and just went back to my old standby: the random-orbit sander. Later, when I was a student at North Bennet Street School, I bought my first expensive new plane and made the same mistake again. That’s when I learned that every handplane needs an overhaul, if only a mild one. It’s the same with a new jointer, a new tablesaw, or any other piece of machinery. The great thing is that this tune-up only needs to be done once, and it pays off for many years. W Clean and deburr the parts You’ll encounter the first problem when you unwrap your new plane and find it covered with a liberal coat of oil, intended to protect it from rust during shipping. Any clean rag will do for wiping it off, but you don’t have to remove all of it. A light coat will go on protecting the tool. Do take the plane completely apart: The lever cap, chipbreaker, plane blade, and even the frog need to be disassembled and wiped down. Inside you’ll also usually find some metal shavings left over from machining. These are a bigger problem than the oil, since they can seriously affect the performance of the plane. A lot of people know you need a razor-sharp blade for good performance, but you also need continuous, flat contact between the bed of the plane, the frog, the blade, the chipbreaker, and the lever cap. Planing creates a lot of pressure, and if anything is between the parts and breaks that connection, the blade will rock and vibrate, and you’ll get chatter. So while all the parts are separate, feel for sharp areas and small metal burrs, and hit them with a fine file. And watch out: Very old planes might even have paint between these mating surfaces, left over from a bad rehab job. Remove it. 20 FINE WOODWORKING hen I was introduced to handplanes as a working carpenter, I thought they would be ready to use out of the box. Most aren’t. They need a good going over, not to mention sharpening and honing. So I got Take it apart and clean it Oil, debris, and small burrs. Take the plane completely apart. On most new planes, you’ll find a generous coat of oil, and most of that should go. Any cotton rag will do. Wipe off any other debris, too. Then feel around for small burrs that might interfere with the contact between all the important milled surfaces. Hit those with a fine file. Photos: Michael Pekovich